


ICE

by ehefic



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-21
Updated: 2012-02-26
Packaged: 2017-11-07 04:57:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/427125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ehefic/pseuds/ehefic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She realizes she's only ever had two ICE contacts, and he's never been one of them. Santana visits Dave in the hospital during 3x14. Santofsky friendship, side Brittana. T for themes and language and trigger warning for canon attempted suicide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hour 1

**Author's Note:**

> TW: canon attempted suicide

It’s 4:13 when she gets the call.  She’ll remember that, later, when she stares hard at her recent call log and wonders if it was real.

“Why are you calling me?” she asks, somewhere between annoyed and confused.

“Hi, is this Santana?” asks someone she’s never met.

She pulls the phone away and checks the name under the call icon.  “Yeah, who the fuck is this?” she snaps.  She’s barely out of Cheerios and wants a shower worse than she wants answers.  “Where’s Karofsky?”

“He’s in the hospital,” says the person using Dave’s phone.  “You were his second ICE number.”

Something sinks from her throat to her belly.  It roils as she wonders when he marked her number that way; she realizes she’s only ever had two ICE contacts, and he’s never been one of them.

“Is he okay?” she asks, interrupting what might be the man’s name.

The voice hesitates on the other line, but says, “He will be.  He’s in the psych ward right now.”

Her throat catches and she ignores the respect she might be expected to show the kind of person entrusted to call ICE numbers.  “What the fuck happened?”

The word _attempted_ sends her grabbing for her Cheerios jacket.  She’s shrugging it on over the sweat drying on her skin when she realizes the man just said _suicide_ and stops in her tracks at the top stair.

She can feel her heart pounding.

“Did you say suicide?”

 

…

 

When she gets to the hospital, she has to think to remember where to go.  She freezes, staring at 4:13 on her recent calls list, as she tries to recollect the words.

Someone pauses beside her and she notices she’s stopped in front of the building directory.  “What’re you looking for?” asks the man hovering next to her.  His helpful smile makes her stomach turn over.

“Psych ward,” she grunts, looking down in alarm when her phone starts to vibrate.

It’s Brittany.

“Fourth floor,” says the guy, pointing at the words on the board.  Santana tucks her phone back in her pocket, like she’s still in the shower, and glances at him.

When she doesn’t say anything—doesn’t tear him a new one about how her father works here and she’s been here more times than a weak-willed diabetic with a sweet tooth, and certainly more times than him—and just walks to the elevators, she realizes how upset she feels.

 

…

 

She has no sense of time while she stands outside his room.  He’s asleep, or unconscious, and he’s frowning like his dreams are as bad as his life.

Her phone rings again at 4:38, according to the display, and she glances through the window and wonders if that would be her, if she didn’t have Brittany.

“Britt,” she breathes when she answers, and it sounds more like a sigh of relief than a greeting.  She can’t tear her eyes away from Karofsky, with his creased forehead and the way they’ve propped his big body so awkwardly in the hospital bed.

Brittany is chewing something.  “Hey, Fred baby,” she says, because she’s been obsessed with _Breakfast at Tiffany’s_ for two weeks now.  When Santana doesn’t reply with the next line—“It’s Paul. Paul baby”—Brittany stops chewing and asks, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

She takes a deep, deep breath, because it feels like she needs extra air to push the words out.  “It’s Dave,” she says, and his name tastes so strange.  She never uses it.

“Dave Karofsky?”  Brittany sounds surprised, too.  Santana can imagine her, setting aside whatever she’s chewing and sitting upright, staring at the tabletop with worried eyes and scratching the grain with her nail.

She nods, though Brittany can’t hear it.  “He’s in the hospital.”

She imagines Brittany frowning.  “God, why?  What happened?  Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” she says, and she wonders if she’s allowed to say what happened.  “I just… I think I need to be here for him, for a little while.”

Brittany doesn’t know; her voice sounds strange, confused, when she answers.  “Okay.  Whatever you need, San.”  She pauses.  “Do you want me to come?”

“It’s okay,” she says, and swallows.  “I’ll call you later.”

Brittany doesn’t question her.

 

…

 

She keeps staring, holding the phone in her palm like a zombie, until a doctor shows up and taps her shoulder.  It startles her and she almost drops her cell.  The doctor looks more irritated than apologetic and she puts the phone back in her pocket.

“You can’t be here,” he’s saying, not even looking at Karofsky through the window.  “Family only.”

She eyes him warily, a bit annoyed because for all this idiot knows she could be Karofsky’s adopted sister—and, really, Santana is closer to family for Karofsky than this guy could ever be.  Instead of that, though, she says, “That’s the visitors policy.  I’m not a visitor.”

That catches him off guard and he adjusts his clipboard to cover it.  “What are you, then?” he asks, sniffing like he’s checking a wine’s fragrance.

“I’m standing outside the fucking room,” she says drily.  She apparently knows the rules better than he does.

The doctor glances at Karofsky through the glass—for the first time—and sighs.  “He’s in a fragile state right now,” he says, which she knows is code for suicide watch.  “I don’t want to agitate him with someone staring through the window during our session.”

Part of her wants to point out that at least he fucking knows her, and he’d probably rather talk to her than this weaksauce newbie, but she’s honestly not sure she can handle talking to anyone right now.

 

…

 

In the little cafeteria, one of the residents recognizes her.  She comes over and it’s only when she sits down that Santana looks up from her cup of bad hospital coffee.

“What’re you doing here?” asks the resident.  Santana can’t remember her name and can’t tear her eyes away from the cup.

“Here for a friend,” she says, and the sentence cracks in half and catches her by surprise.

It must say more than her words did, because the resident just gives her hands a squeeze over the cup and leaves.

 

…

 

She stares hard at the flowers in her hand, still unsure how she ended up buying them, when the door clicks shut in front of her.  She looks up at the doctor in surprise.

“You’re still here?” he asks, clearly irritated, but then he sees the flowers.  “Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh_ ,” she says.  She’s too tired to snap at him.  “Can I go in?”  She glances at the window and almost jumps when she sees Karofsky’s eyes settled on her.  He looks different.  His expression is strange to her.

The doctor is sighing, so she draws her gaze back to him.  “If you won’t go away, I guess you might as well go in,” he laments, like she’s a waste of his time.

She skirts around him without saying _thank you_ and slips into the room.

 

…

 

“Why are you here?” he finally asks, once she’s put the flowers on the table and peered uneasily at every corner of the room.

His voice sounds rough and strangled.

The word makes her flinch.  She covers it by shoving her hands into the pockets of her jacket.

“I got a call,” she says, wondering what they’ve told him.  Even she doesn’t know why they called her.  She doesn’t even remember who called.

He looks aside and she notices his cell phone isn’t beside him.  She doesn’t see it anywhere.

When he doesn’t say anything, she rubs her knuckles against the pocket lining and shifts her weight to her other foot.  “Dave, what the hell?” she says, and when she hears how small it sounds, she realizes she’s almost crying.  Her eyes feel wet.

“They know,” he answers, in the lowest part of his register.  It sounds like a growl.  With his tortured voice box, it barely sounds human.

She feels her forehead smooth out and her ears tug back, the way they do.  She remembers the white-hot white-cold terror of being outed.  She remembers the fabric of the chair in Sylvester’s office and the imperfection in the corner of the TV screen.  She remembers all the blood in her body pumping to her legs.  Fight or flight.

“When?” she asks.  Her voice shakes like she’s back in that room.  In that horrible afternoon.

Karofsky—Dave—licks his lips and stares at his big, soft hands.  “I… went to see Kurt on Valentine’s,” he admits.  Santana chews her lip and remembers the dumb gorilla costume.  “Somebody from school saw me.”

She swallows and it leaves her throat just as dry.  She’s closer to the bed than she thought, and she’s squeezing her hands so tight she can feel each nail against her palm.  “What kind of somebody?”

She knows the answer already, but he gives it anyway:  “The wrong kind of somebody.”

He laughs sadly.

“And he told.”

It’s not a question.

Dave keeps staring at his hands.  He doesn’t need to answer—doesn’t need to say anything—and she sits on the side of the bed and looks at her knees.  “Dave, why didn’t you call me?” she asks, even though she’s not sure he ever owed her that.

“I didn’t want to look at my phone,” he says quietly, and it feels like the first answer she hasn’t expected.  She turns her head to watch his face and he shrugs when he meets her eyes.  “I had—They texted a bunch of shit.”

It takes effort to remind herself that she needs to be here for Dave first, before she can pummel whoever _they_ are.  They’re not Finn Hudson; they don’t have good intentions and a school administration of worshippers to protect them from her.

“I’m sorry,” she hears, higher pitched and rough again, and she snaps her head around and sees Dave cradling his face in his hands.  Somehow, being too big for the bed makes him look small.

“No,” she says, shaking her head so hard it starts to hurt.  She reaches out and takes his hands away from his face.  The tears and his skin against hers feels so old and alien; she hasn’t touched him at all since junior prom, and this weird echo of their closet party is the best and worst part of this moment.

“It’s not your fault,” she says because she has no idea what to say.  She knows it’s right to be here, but she’s not sure what steps come next.  She squeezes his hands and looks at his wet eyes.

“Dave, nobody deserves to feel like this,” she says, and suddenly she’s crying.

She’s running down the hallway, smearing her makeup with her wrists, trying not to trip over her feet and the worst campaign ad ever and the very idea of Finn fucking Hudson and his Ohio-sized mouth.  She’s feeling that pain in her chest, like her heart lives in a box that’s getting smaller.

Dave’s face is open and sad, but he’s smiling under the tears on his lips.  “I’m not sure why I did it,” he finally says, and she knows it’s a lie.

But they don’t have to talk about that.  That’s not who they are.  She’s known that since their first conversation at the Lima Bean during Operation: Win Prom Queen.  They’re not _It Gets Better_ poster children.  “You don’t have to know why,” she says and shrugs.  “I’m here either way.”

 

…

 

“Thanks for the flowers,” he mutters when they’ve stopped crying like a pair of wusses.

She smirks at them, lit poorly under the flourescents, and swings her feet against the side of the bed.  “You’re welcome.  I couldn’t get a corsage on such short notice,” she teases.

He chuckles, and it makes the ache in her stomach loosen a little to hear him sound genuine.

“Not that I want you to go,” he says softly, still rasping, “but don’t you have places to be?”

She blinks and thinks about it.  “That’s right.  You gotta tell me some home addresses so I can go fuck their shit up.”  She turns seriously and he looks so surprised that it surprises her, too.  “The douchebags that messed you up,” she clarifies.

He looks shocked, now.  “Santana, no, you don’t—I mean, you shouldn’t—”

“Dave,” she says slowly, “I’m serious.  You know I can take care of it.”  She doesn’t do this much anymore—picking fights, or even TPing houses, aside from the freshman Cheerios’ first week of practice—but this is what they are to each other, her and Dave.  This is her duty in their weird, fucked up relationship.

He looks away from her and that’s her first clue.  He picks at his fingernail and says, “I’m not sure you can.”

It takes him a minute to glance at her face again and when he sees it, he sighs.  “It’s the whole fucking football team, Santana,” he says earnestly.  “I mean, you’re fierce and all”—his voice rises the way it does when he teases her—“but there’s a lot of them, and I really don’t want you to get into it… you know?”

She’s about to insist when she catches the sadness in his expression.  The way he’s asking like it’s a favor.

A moment passes and her body relaxes.  “If you’re sure,” she pushes.  Firm.

He nods back, equally serious.  “I’m sure.”

“Okay then.”

She smiles, just a little, because this is really what they are to each other.  A little sadness, a little regret.  Respect.  Understanding.

He smiles back, just a little, and the knot in her belly loosens a little more.

 

…

 

“I meant Brittany,” he says after they sit a little longer.

“Huh?”

He shuffles his legs under the blanket.  She doesn’t flinch when his shin brushes her butt.  “When I said you have somewhere else to be,” he says, glancing away and back again with that half-smile of his.  It’s been so long since she’s seen him that it’s strange to recognize every expression on his face.

He mistakes her silence and ducks his head to retrieve her attention, adding, “Aren’t you with Brittany now?  That’s what Facebook says.”

She smiles and laughs, self-conscious, and hooks her finger behind her ear like her hair’s down and needs tucking.  “Yeah,” she says, breathless like she gets whenever she talks about it.  Her legs swing against the bed again and she touches her thighs to make them stop.

“So why are you still here?” he asks, gentle.

That makes her frown and she looks back toward him, a little surprised he’s even asking.  “You need me,” she says, and she laughs and punches his knee when he grins.  “You do,” she insists, “and I can see her later, whenever we’re done here.  Okay?”

He eyes the blue bed sheets bashfully and keeps smiling.  “Okay.”

 

…

 

Her phone vibrates and _Home_ flashes across the screen.  Her eyes dart to his as she picks up.  “Mamí,” she greets while looking at Dave, to tell him who it is.  “What’s up?”

“Sweetheart, are you coming home for dinner?  Where are you?”

Santana turns away instinctively, legs swinging again.  “I’m helping out a friend.  Um”—she turns to Dave—“hang on a second.”

She tucks the phone against her shoulder and asks, “Do you want me to bring us some dinner?  The food here sucks worse than the Master Cleanse.”

He laughs because she made him try it once and he almost puked.  “You don’t have to,” he says kindly, and she feels relieved all over again because he looks almost normal now.

She smiles back and brings the phone to her lips.  “I think I’m gonna eat here,” she says vaguely.  It takes a moment before she hangs up.

“You really don’t have to,” he repeats, quieter.

She shrugs and says, “I’d rather eat with you than them, anyway.  We’ve clearly got a lot to catch up on.”  She waggles her eyebrows and he chuckles.  More cautiously, she glances at his bruised throat and asks, “What can you eat, right now?”

He smiles grimly at her—or maybe sadly—and shrugs.  “I’m not that hungry, honestly,” he admits, “so if you just got me like a king size milkshake, that’d be awesome.”

As she grins and hops off the bed, hanging her hands in her pockets by the thumbs, he amends to her amusement, “Maybe two king size milkshakes.”

 

…

 

She’s picking fries one by one out of the McDonald’s bag as he works on his milkshake with a spoon and shaky hands.

“So,” she says, “you and Lady Hummel, huh?”  She offers him her softest, gentlest smile, one she wonders if he’s ever seen.

He reddens almost as fast as Brittany does and buries his attention in the chocolate shake.  “Shut up,” he mutters.

She grins and chomps a fry on the right side of her mouth.  “No, seriously,” she says, digging in the bag for another one.

After a moment, she looks up and finds his eyes on her.  Her chewing slows.  “Dave, what?  It’s me.”

His gaze flicks out the window and back to his shake.  He stirs it deliberately with his plastic spoon.  “I dunno, I figured you didn’t like him,” he says uneasily.

She stares until he meets her eyes again.  “Dave, you can tell me anything,” she says, so sincerely it almost makes her feel sick.  It’s still foreign and frightening to talk like this with people who aren’t Brittany.  She looks down into the bag.  “I’ve certainly told you plenty.”

“Santana,” he says, and she swallows hard.

“I’m serious.”  She bites her lip and tastes the salt from the fries.  “I know where you’ve been, okay?  You don’t have to hide from me.”

He sighs and she sees him pursing his lips as he considers.  It takes him a minute, but then he just mutters, “Well, now it’s not gonna be as dramatic as the hype.”

“I doubt it,” she jokes.  “You queens know your drama.”

“Shut up,” he says with a grin, kicking her butt lightly.

She grins and throws a fry at him, missing the shake by half an inch.  “Hands off the merchandise,” she shoots back.

“You wish.”

“Been there, done that.”

“Gross.”

They’re both laughing, almost happily, and Dave gets the fry from his lap and dips it gamely in the shake.  “I really like him, I think,” he finally admits, in a hushed tone that’s almost clean of the fear that used to taint her confessions.

She smiles at him, gentle and sympathetic, and thinks about watching Brittany nuzzle Artie during Glee.  The image doesn’t stab like it used to, but the ache is still there.  “He’s a good guy,” she offers.

Dave looks up and she knows he understands.  He sighs.  “It was dumb to go see him,” he mutters, and it sounds distraught at the end because that’s also why they’re here in this stupid hospital bed in the first place.

“We all do dumb things,” she says, without adding _for love_.  She knows she’s done plenty of dumb shit, and not all of it was for such a noble cause.  A lot of it was for nothing.

He sighs and slurps milkshake off the spoon unhappily.

“Dave,” she begins, shifting uncomfortably because this is going to make her uncomfortable, “this—all this shit—it shouldn’t be about Kurt, you know?”  She feels his eyes on her and she stares resolutely at the fries spilled on the bottom of the bag.  “Coming out is about you, and it’s sure as shit easier when you’ve got people to help you, but Kurt…”  She bites her lip and tries again.  “Maybe Kurt’s not your one and only, you know?”

She looks at him and hopes he listens.  Hopes he doesn’t discard it immediately because who the fuck is she to talk about one-and-onlys when she’s got Brittany?  When she’s the only one-and-only most people have ever met?

Before his expression settles, she shakes her head and tries a third time.  “Kurt’s not the only guy you’ll like, okay?  So whatever steps you take—whatever steps you _need_ to take—make sure they’re _your_ steps, okay?”

She reaches out and touches his knee.  To her relief, he smiles at her, faintly.  It takes her a second to see the tears glistening in his eyes.

“Oh, shut up,” she mutters as she grins at him.  She squeezes his knee.  “I’m just saying, Auntie Snix is way better backup than Porcelain when the shit hits the fan.”  She winks at him.

“Well, good,” he says, mixing the shake with his spoon again.  “Because there is definitely shit all over everything right now.”

She grins and throws another fry at him.  “Gross.”

 

…

 

When she finally checks her phone for the time, he says, “You really should go soon, Santana.”

She wants to protest, but it’s almost 10:15, and she has calculus to do for tomorrow.  “I can stay,” she says truthfully, looking over at him, “if you need me to.  If you want me to.”  She shrugs, uncertain how to put this promise into words.  “I can stay.”

He shakes his head as she puts her phone away.  “It’s okay,” he assures her, setting the remnants of the second shake on his bedside table.  His voice still sounds so rough.  “I… feel kind of better,” he adds, pitch rising at the end like he can hardly believe it himself.

With a grin, she jokes, “Who knew Santana Lopez would ever make somebody feel _better_?”

He snorts.  “Whatever.”  He nods at her phone.  “Go see your girl and stuff.”

She grins and sighs.  She suddenly realizes how much she’s missed him.  “Can…”  She hesitates; she’s not sure how to ask him for something.  She’s pretty sure she never has.  “Can I come by again tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”  He blinks like she shouldn’t be asking.  “Duh.”

She looks at him like she’s never seen him before.  Maybe she hasn’t.  She grins again as she asks, “Want me to bring more milkshakes?”

“Please,” he says heavily.  “If I have to yak my head off with that dumb psychiatrist, I’m gonna need more chocolate goodness.”

She fucking giggles at him and walks to the table to sweep the empty cups into her McDonald’s bag.  “Well, I’ll be sure to deliver some,” she promises.

They pause there, for a moment, and Santana’s about to attempt a goodbye when he adds, “You can bring Brittany, if you want,” with upturned eyebrows.

It takes a second to process the sentence—she’s not sure she’s ever heard him say Brittany’s name—but she shakes her head as soon as she gets it.  “No, that’s okay,” she says, unsure how to explain that this thing they have, where they understand each other, is separate from Brittany.  How it’s better when it’s the two of them.

She catches the relief at the corners of his eyes and smiles a little.  “She’s got better things to do than mope around with us,” she says.

“Like what?” he asks with a crooked, curious grin.

“Dance class,” she answers smoothly as she coils the top of the paper bag.  It rustles.

He’s still grinning and he finally says, with happiness that seems strange even to him, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, Lopez.”

“I guess you will, Karofsky.”


	2. Hour 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second day under observation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: canon attempted suicide

While they wait at the drive-thru window, Brittany drops the coins into a dip in the center console and asks, "Are you sure you don't want me to come with?"

Santana turns away from the windshield and the empty parking lot and catches the concern on Brittany's face. She offers a grim little smile and shakes her head. "Thanks, Britt. But I think it'll be easier if it's just us."

Brittany tilts her head forward, looking seriously through her lashes, and says, "If you're sure," right as the guy slides the window open and chirps her name.

Brittany reaches out of the car to take the milkshakes and hands them to Santana, who nestles one in the cup holder next to Brittany's Cheerios water bottle and cradles the other between her palms, letting the cold condensation seep into her skin.

"I am," Santana promises as Brittany drives away.

As they wait at the mouth of the road, Brittany leans forward against the steering wheel to see around the hedges. Two cars pass them, headlights straining against the darkness of the thick gray clouds in the sky. Brittany turns her signal on and jolts into the lane.

The stoplight is red ahead of them. She stops behind the cars that just passed.

"Santana, are you sure you're okay seeing him?" asks Brittany quietly, looking at her hands where she's coiled them in her lap.

Santana swallows and adjusts the cup against her thigh. It's freezing against her skin. "It's okay. I mean it," she says. She clears her throat and glances at Brittany. Her blue eyes. Her open expression. "This is… I need to be there for him."

There's a pause, and a quiver at Brittany's throat belies her nervousness. "Was he there for you?" she asks, tentative and solemn, fingers twisting tighter against her thighs.

A car honks. The light's changed.

"In his way," Santana answers, leaning her head against the glass of the window as Brittany pulls the car forward. She remembers changing her Facebook to "Interested in Women"—a sort of  _fuck you_  to Finn Hudson and the world he lived in—and how, among the small cluster of Likes, Dave's name had appeared quietly at the bottom. He'd hidden the action on his news feed.

When she added Brittany under "In a Relationship with," he'd liked it too. And hidden it.

"San?" Brittany coaxes.

She pulls her forehead from the glass and flashes a smile at Brittany to reassure her. She catches Brittany's eye again—that soft sweet concern—and her eyes crinkle under the weight of a warm, deep breath. She reaches across the car and steals Brittany's hand from the steering wheel. Brittany glances at her again; Santana kisses Brittany's knuckles and links their fingers. Brittany's blushing and smiling.

"I really love you, you know," Santana whispers, her voice higher and lighter than she expected.

Brittany squeezes Santana's fingers without looking away from the road. Her grin twitches bigger. "I really, really love you back." She sighs and turns halfway to check the left lane before switching them over. "But you didn't answer my question."

She shoots another look at Santana and Santana uneasily balances the milkshake on her knee. It's still cold and sweating through the plastic.

"I didn't need his help," she admits with a shrug. She swallows the guilty taste of the confession. She stares at Brittany with full eyes until Brittany chances another look away from the road. Santana smiles helplessly and explains: "I had you."

...

Brittany gives her a searing kiss in the drop-off circle, like she's branding her and saying goodbye all at once. When she pulls back and takes in Santana's face with lidded eyes, Santana presses softly against Brittany's lips, to soothe the ache. Brittany nudges their noses together as they draw away and it makes Santana smile.

"Don't have too much fun," says Brittany with a gentle smile. She puts the second milkshake in Santana's free hand, then leans forward to pull the door handle for her.

Santana just smiles and nods vaguely before she struggles out of the car with no hands.

"You have your keys and your phone?" Brittany asks, inspecting the floor mat and passenger seat.

"In my pocket," Santana answers, grinning so hard she's afraid her face will break. Brittany looks up, lips curled around a little  _oh_ , and Santana keeps grinning.

Brittany smiles back and shakes her head like Santana's a nut and says, "Okay. Call me when you want a ride."

Teasingly, Santana shrugs and hums, "I might be late."

Brittany just shakes her head. "Call me anyway," she says, softer and firm.

...

She goes straight to his room this time because she can feel the milkshakes getting milkier in the cups. When she gets there, though, one glance through the window stops her cold in her tracks.

Dave's crying. A woman is standing between him and the window with her arms folded. Her sharp voice bounces against the walls and the window in a harsh buzz. Dave's wiping at his eyes with his left hand. The monitor on his index finger keeps bumping his nose.

He still looks small in that bed.

Once a minute or two or ten have passed, with the cold sinking out of the milkshakes and into Santana's skin and freezing her to the spot, the woman turns abruptly and shakes her head. Santana jumps awkwardly to the wall beside the window; by cautiously angling her head, she sees the woman's closed eyes.

Santana's shoulders relax. The voice inside has stopped. Soon, the woman shakes her head and speaks—one more time—and pauses by the door. Santana panics and arranges a casual pose as the woman sweeps into the hallway.

"Oh," says the woman, eyes hard. She must be Dave's mother.

"Mrs. Karofsky," Santana tries, polite and careful. Even last year—even for prom—they've never met.

Mrs. Karofsky nods primly and scans Santana head to toe. She sniffs like she can smell Lima Heights under the Cheerios uniform and it sends a shiver down Santana's spine. "And who are you?"

With a gulp, she answers, "Santana. Lopez."

Mrs. Karofsky's eyes narrow. "Do I know you?" She jerks her head toward the window and sneers faintly. "Why are you visiting my son?"

Her eyes catch on the milkshakes in Santana's hands.

"We dated last year," she says firmly. Mrs. Karofsky hasn't recognized her from the commercial—or so it seems—so maybe she can give Dave one last boost with her lingering credibility. One last batch of sour brownie points.

But Mrs. Karofsky's angry expression instantly slackens into boredom. "Oh, right," she sighs, digging keys out of her purse. "The Mexican."

Santana's eyes and mouth drop wide open, but Mrs. Karofsky is walking past her down the hallway before her verbal barrage escapes her lips.

"It was lovely meeting you," Mrs. Karofsky calls over her shoulder, and even Santana can only sound that deeply sarcastic on a very good day.

...

"Shit, Dave," Santana says as she smacks the milkshakes on the table beside a basket of hideous flowers. She clutches the railing and bends over him while her lip quivers.

He looks at her in surprise, but his expression is still wounded. He's still wiping at his tears with his big hands. Santana gulps and swats them away; replaces them with her own. She brushes her thumbs against his cheeks the way she's only ever done for Brittany.

"I'm fine," he gurgles, words as wet as his eyes when he squeezes them shut. He pushes her away by the wrists and smears at his face angrily. "It's fine."

"Dave," Santana pushes, swiveling to perch on the edge of the bed with her thigh wedged against the rail, "Dave, you don't have to be fine." Her voice breaks and she can't pull his hands away from where they wipe his eyes raw and red. "It doesn't have to be fine."

Dave starts hiccupping, the way he does when he swallows funny, and she bites her lips and tugs again at his forearms. Slowly, he relents; his fingers stall across his face until he's just hiding behind them. She can hear his whimpered sobs. His slumped shoulders shiver intermittently.

Again, she pulls, and now he lets her lay their hands together in his lap. The feel of the plastic monitor under her thumb makes her breath hitch along with his. Tears still follow the tracks down his cheeks.

She watches him quietly, sadly, and his eyes drift open and closed with new pain like he's blinking in slow motion. She squeezes his hands because it's the most physical reassurance she's comfortable offering; though she cares about him, the idea of him reminds her too much of her former self. She's long since tired of giving away pieces of herself that really belong to herself. Or to Brittany.

As she swallows, though, and looks with empathy at his fluttering eyelids and quivering chin, she realizes there may be another kind of piece she can offer him. So, she takes a deep breath, steels herself, and finally manages to say the words out loud: "My grandmother won't talk to me anymore."

It makes her heart speed up, like she's back in the kitchen with her feet shifting firmer against the floor, staring in shock as her grandmother's face contorts in a rage she hasn't seen since she was six and still leaving her bike out in the rain by accident. Her gaze drops with the weight of the feeling and when she finally forces herself to look back at his face, his eyes are open and squinting, like he thinks he knows what's happening and he's afraid to be right.

She shrugs one shoulder, drawing her hands back onto the bedspread beside his knee and along the plastic rail. She licks her lip. Her heart's still beating too fast. "When I told her, she… she got really mad."

Dave's mouth opens a little; he shakes his head. He speaks in a dry rasp, like a hinge in need of oil, abused by the lingering cut of the belt and the strain of crying: "Why?"

They both know the question hurts, but Santana considers him and constructs her answer. She knows he needs to know; he knows she needs to tell him.

"She said I should have kept it a secret," she admits, so so quietly. Her hands tangle by her hip and her eyes dart away. She stares at the ugly flowers and the heartless pre-printed card pinned among them. "She said I… shamed her," she elaborates, tucking her lips between her teeth and feeling tears prick her eyes. Trying to translate  _vergüenza_ brings back that stabbing pain. Her  _abuela_ 's wide, angry eyes.

The difficult translation feels like a fucked-up metaphor.

Dave is looking at her strangely when she finally turns back. He's looking at her like she's a new person. He looks strangely hopeful and she can't figure out why. "Really?" he asks. Like his heart is an egg she's cracked against the table and then lovingly swaddled in velvet. The gaps in sound from his brutalized voice makes her feel too heartsick to hate him for making her relive this.

"Yeah," she says, soft instead of harsh. The change surprises her still.

"That was my mom," he says after a moment. Santana frowns as he looks back down at his hands and picks at his nail again; it's that signal that makes her wait for more. He rolls his eyes sadly at the ceiling—they're glistening wet again—and gasps, "She said I can be cured," as fresh sobs break out.

Santana's eyes drift closed and she squeezes them, hard, against the sting of matching tears. She remembers her youth—her adolescence; she remembers the first dream she had about touching Brittany, and her first long shower in the morning trying to scrub it off her skin; she remembers their first kiss and her first secret, earnest trip to confession; she remembers rubbing her tears into Puck's shoulder while he grunted atop her.

"Dave, we both know that's not true," she whispers, because she's seen him wear the same haunted expression she still sometimes sees in the mirror.

He doesn't answer. He just keeps crying. Maybe he's crying harder.

She reaches out and touches his shoulder. She has to shift further onto the bed to do it; her hip bumps his knee and he shies away.

...

He's been crying for a little while when his off-key whines turn into, "What am I going to do?"

Santana swallows and forces herself to look him in the eye. She's been trying to answer that question, but there are too many variables.

Instead, she promises, "We'll think of something." When he runs his hand under his nose and stares miserably at the bedside table—noticing the milkshakes with surprise—she says, "I wasn't kidding when I said I'd back you up."

He takes a shaky breath, sniffles, and flops his hand unhappily over the top of the closer McDonald's cup. "She's my mom," he says helplessly.

"You can live in my fucking basement if you have to," Santana blurts. She bites her lip when he turns sharply toward her.

Dave holds his breath for three full seconds. "You'd do that?" he gasps, confused and afraid and almost hopeful.

Santana drops her hand from his shoulder and rubs her arm uneasily. "My parents aren't home a lot, so you could probably squat there for a while," she plans aloud, scanning the bed sheet like she's reading the ideas off paper. "You could transfer back to McKinley. Even if word gets out, you pack some punch there. I can back you up."

Even if Sebastian's apparently turning over a less douchy leaf, she knows Dave can't afford Dalton. Especially without parents.

She's talking as fast as the thoughts come, so she's surprised when she looks up and he's gaping. Stunned. Her eyebrows push together and she opens her mouth to ask when he stutters, "You—you'd do all that for me?"

She blinks at him. "Duh," she says, suddenly wondering if she's missed something. Misinterpreted something.

He blushes quickly—again, she's struck by how his light complexion mirrors Brittany's, the way he reddens in big bashful patches—and says, "Sorry, I guess—" He shrugs. "I figured you didn't actually like me that much." His eyes slide to his hand on the plastic cup. "Especially after the shit I pulled on Hummel."

"No," she says immediately, shaking her head with wide eyes. "Dave, that's never—" She falters and feels her expression soften. "Maybe it was stupid at first, but I think…" She sucks in a breath and admits it, because he needs to know: "We're sort of similar, you and I."

He looks at her with this hopeful, vulnerable face and smiles his tiny, crooked smile. "You think?" he says, in a voice too small for her to deny him.

So, instead of shutting him down, she rolls her eyes and looks at her finger as she traces shy patterns on the blanket with her thumb. "Yeah. Kinda." Before he can give her crap for it, she glances up and nods at the milkshake. "You better drink that shit, since I brought it special."

He grins bigger at her and pulls it into his lap. He pops the lid off and snaps the wrapping off the spoon; when he brings the first spoonful toward his lips, he dips it toward her like he's toasting with a glass.

She snorts and hops back on the bed. When her back touches his knee again, he doesn't pull away.

...

"I had a plan," he says quietly, once he's made a dent in the shake.

She pulls her eyes away from the business card among the ugly flowers. She frowns to focus her thoughts. "For coming out?" she asks just as quietly, like it's junior year and she's still afraid someone will hear them.

He's staring hard into his shake, like it's some big feat of concentration. "Yeah." His voice shakes between pitches and he clears his throat painfully. "But"—his eyes flash to hers for a moment—"the whole thing started with me doing it myself, you know?"

Santana laughs because she can't help it; because now, she really can't deny how motherfucking similar they are. "I know exactly what you mean," she drawls bitterly, zoning out at the floor tiles and laughing breathily at the memory of Finn goddamn fishface Hudson to keep from breaking back into tears.

Dave's breath catches and she glances at him with interest. "I heard about that," he says, and she can't tell if it sounds like that because of his neck or because of what he's saying.

She turns back to the floor and kicks her legs. "Yeah." She laughs again and it sounds hollow.

Dave doesn't say anything for a moment. She hears the spoon scraping the sides of the cup. "It's kind of funny," he says like it's not funny at all. "How you spend so much time planning, you give 'em long enough to figure it out."

"Real fucking funny," Santana says, and again it's too tired to sound bitchy. She sounds defeated; more than that, she sounds like she's commiserating. With Dave Karofsky.

Dave shrugs in her peripheral vision. "You figured me out pretty quick," he acknowledges.

Santana looks up at him and frowns. "That's true." She'd forgotten about that. Her gaze edges along the wall as she thinks. "But I think it's a little different for… when you're both on the same team." She licks her lips and checks his face.

"Maybe," he says. "But…" He purses his lips; hedges; regret spreads into his eyes and temples. "If I'd done it… my plan…" He shakes his head and begins again. "I mean, I had it planned, like, even in the summer. I started planning it when you called me out like I was wearing a fucking rainbow t-shirt." He gestures at her helplessly and chuckles in disbelief. "If I'd started when I thought of it… Hell, if I'd started the week before Valentine's…"

His voice wavers at the end and he cuts off. He ends with another shrug and aims his wet eyes at the window.

"I had a plan, too," she offers with brightness that turns bitter. He turns back to her with a half-smile. The sympathetic one.

It makes her smile back, despite what she's about to say. She has to look at her hands to force the words out. "Maybe it's for the better, because I was going to tell my  _abuela_ first." She laughs again, sadly and emptily. "I thought she'd have my back when I told my parents. Who knew it'd be my parents who didn't care."

When Dave doesn't say anything for what feels like a full minute—he doesn't even move the spoon in the melting milkshake—she laughs again and looks up at the ceiling, at the God she feels more and more is just mocking her, and she says, "I was going to pack a fucking bag, you know? So I could take off."

"Me too," he says, and the way the word cracks makes her turn in alarm. Tears are spilling over again and he looks at her in despair. In agony. "But I didn't know where I'd go if I needed to use it."

"Dave," she chirps in panic. She crawls up the bed—closer to him than she's been since they forced that slow dance last fucking spring—and loops her arm over his big slumped shoulders. "Dave, God," she says, "you could have called me. You could have come to me."

He's hysterical again, hiccupping and gulping instead of breathing, and he actually leans against her shoulder as he gasps, "I felt so alone. I still feel so alone."

She clutches him against her and wonders what the fuck she's supposed to say.

...

"I think I would have called you," he admits once he's quieted down and drawn away from her embrace.

She lets him separate them and curls her knees up into her corner of the little bed. "I hear I'm your emergency contact," she says, watching his face closely.

He just glances at her and twists his lips as he chooses his words. "I would've felt bad about it." He moves the spoon through the melting ice cream. "But I would've called."

Her instinct is to call him on it—because he didn't call her, not when it mattered—but she knows with sick certainty that, if her phone had all that hate in it, she wouldn't have used it, either.

"Oh, I forgot!" She leans back and digs in her jacket pockets. Her left has her phone, keys, and license; her right has what she's looking for. She pulls out a shitty prepaid cell phone and holds it in front of him. "Here, I picked this up so you can text me when you're, like, bored all day."

Dave actually smiles—then he grins a little—and he takes it from her. He moves to grip the milkshake between his legs so it won't spill and flips the phone open. "Nokia," he says with a smirk. "Old school."

"I saved the number," she ignores him and points, "and I added some people who are actually worth contacting."

He obediently opens the Contacts list and his smile swims strangely when he sees half the Glee kids listed, plus *Santana carefully tacked at the top and *Trevor Hotline right below it. That makes him frown and turn back toward her.

More nervously, she hugs her knees to her chest and explains, "It's… a suicide hotline, for gay kids." She swallows and makes herself amend, "Kids like us." He looks back at the phone in wonder and she says, shrugging uncomfortably, "I—I looked it up last year."

His head snaps left and his eyes dig right into her. She almost flinches, but he needs to hear this, too. Still, she lets herself look away from him; instead, she inspects the nail polish chipping off her left pinkie. "When things got bad with Britt," she says after she's mustered some courage, "like, really bad…"

She glances at him. Though she's speaking slowly, he just watches her. Waiting patiently.

So she looks back down and surges ahead. "It was before I talked to you about prom and whatever. While she was with Artie and we weren't talking, and…" Her eyes drift shut and she shudders. "It was really bad." She swallows and says it again, because fuck, has she been waiting forever to say it. "It was so fucking bad, Dave," she almost sobs, and she leans her forehead against her knees to protect herself from that awful feeling she came to know so well. The feeling she lived inside, like a second skin.

He doesn't interrupt her. So she takes a second to smooth her ragged breathing. "She was the only one I talked to, you know?" she says, realizing distantly that these are secrets she's telling. She's too deep to stop, though. "And how the fuck could I talk to her when we weren't talking? And, fuck, it was  _her_ I wanted to talk about…"

She wipes her nose and snivels. When she doesn't pick up again after a moment, Dave says softly, just as ragged as her, "I wish I'd thought to do that. Look up somebody to call."

"It's not your fault," she insists again. She peels away from her knees to stare hard at him, determined through her gathering tears. "You're still here, and now you've got at least two people you can call."

...

He's swallowing the last of his milkshake and then he's asking out of the blue, "Is that why you showed me those videos?"

"What videos?" she asks, idly flipping through the stock wallpaper choices for his crappy new mobile.

"About the suicides, and stuff."

She looks up at the way he wavers on  _suicides_. He's staring at the cup he just emptied.

After a moment of debate, she wets her lips and tells the truth: "Yes."

He keeps staring at the cup like it's got tea leaves in the bottom. She actually cranes her head a little to check, but there's just the half-moon of melted shake dribbled in the crease at the bottom.

"I kind of wish we weren't so alike," he says, like it makes him want to laugh and cry at the same time. He quickly wipes his eyes with his wrists and she guesses he mostly wants to cry.

She laughs, sad and almost crazy, like she's making up for it. "Me too," she teases, but she's sort of glad to realize he put her pieces together on his own.

...

"I should call Brittany," Santana finally sighs, when it gets toward the late end of dinnertime. She turns to Dave and checks his expression. "You said that guy's coming later."

He nods and bites his lips. He looks nervous again: the way his eyes don't meet hers. Then, his expression clears and he aims a little smile at her. "Checking up with the missus?" he jokes, a little sadly.

Santana grins at him but doesn't contradict it. She opens a text to Brittany instead, asking for a ride. "You want me to have her come up?" She waggles her eyebrows, thumb hesitating over the Send button.

He waves her off and slurps at the second milkshake. It's soup by now, but still tasty soup. "Nah, she doesn't like me."

It's kind of true, but Santana raises an eyebrow in challenge. "Because you bullied Kurt?" she guesses, wondering what he thinks is the cause.

"Because I got to take you to prom," he says, and his face goes so soft and sweet that she almost pukes.


	3. Hour 49

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second/Third day under observation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: canon attempted suicide, inflammatory language

Today, she's feeling a little better. She stops by the little gift booth near the hospital entrance, where she picked up those flowers before, and she sets the chocolate milkshake on the counter as she pulls her wallet out to pay for a stupid stuffed bear.

At that moment, a shrill voice yells "You!" from across the room. Like everyone else, Santana turns around in confusion; unlike everyone else, when she looks, she's caught staring straight into the wild, angry eyes of Mrs. Karofsky.

"Me?" Santana frowns, scanning her immediate surroundings as Mrs. Karofsky storms over to her. "What about me?" she asks, and she tries to sound angry so her voice shakes less.

Mrs. Karofsky rears up in front of her with her balled fists shivering by her hips. "You did this to him!"

Shit. Santana glances around again, but the bystanders look even more panicked than she is. "Did what?" she demands.

"I should've known the second you showed up," she's hissing, six inches too close to Santana's face. Santana winces—shuts her eyes against the spittle and the grossness of this woman's bright pink lipstick—and Mrs. Karofsky snaps, disgusted, "You made him this way."

At that, Santana almost growls. "Me?" she repeats sharply, indignant and furious.

"Yes, you, you little spic," Mrs. Karofsky fumes. Santana can hardly believe how long it's been since anyone's dared call her that; it makes her heart shake and her fingers curl into fists. "You made him into a fucking fag, and now I have to fix it."

"You fucking bitch," Santana gasps, trying to put all her deep, sudden loathing into one sentence because you can't punch someone's lights out in a hospital. "I didn't make him anything; I was just there to—"

"Ladies," says a rent-a-cop with a markedly ashen face, taking Mrs. Karofsky firmly by the shoulder to force space between them.

Mrs. Karofsky shakes him off. She looks crazed.

The security guard frowns. "You need to keep it down," he says firmly, making a suppressive gesture with one hand while the other hooks on his belt. "You can't be yelling in here."

Santana knows that already, but Mrs. Karofsky glances over each shoulder. The sight of horrified, scandalized families hovering around travel packs of tissues finally wipes some of the ferocity from her face.

"I know," Santana says to the guard. "I'm sorry." She stares at Mrs. Karofsky, challenging her to start in again.

Mrs. Karofsky just takes a deep breath and then swallows. She glares at Santana like it'll say what she's not allowed to, but she mutters, "My apologies. It won't happen again."

They stand for a moment, frozen, until Mrs. Karofsky realizes the guard isn't leaving until they stand down from fighting stance. "You stay away from my son," she spits curtly at Santana, and for a moment Santana feels a shock of cold fear that Mrs. Karofsky will tell the guard to ban her from Dave's visitor roster. In the psych ward, it's even easier to claim Santana's presence will upset him.

But Mrs. Karofsky doesn't seem to think of it. She sneers at Santana one more time—looking her up and down, as if to verify she judged her right the first time—and spins on her heel toward the exit.

Santana watches Mrs. Karofsky disappear down the rows of cars, but it's not until the guard touches her shoulder that she realizes she's shaking. Gently, he asks, "Are you okay?"

He must have heard what Mrs. Karofsky called her. He sounds too sympathetic.

"I'm fine," she says. She swallows and turns back to the counter; it feels like a lifetime since she saw it last. Her wallet's still open on the polished wood, next to the little Get Well teddy bear.

The attendant looks at her with the same sympathy as the guard. "Sure you don't need something for her, too?" she jokes cautiously as Santana hands over her debit card.

"Thanks, but I'm pretty sure the horse tranquilizers are on the fifth floor," Santana returns drily.

The clerk smiles at her and it actually makes her feel a little better as she takes the card back. "Do you want a bag?"

Santana shakes her head and puts the wallet back in her pocket. She picks up the milkshake and takes the bear by the paw. "I think I can handle him, thanks."

The clerk shrugs and offers, "Hope your day gets better than that."

"Yours, too," Santana says. It surprises her how sincere it sounds.

* * *

"Hey," Dave says, and Santana wonders hesitantly if he actually looks happy to see her.

Well, some of the misery's drained out. She'll take what she gets.

"Hey." She crosses to the bed and sets the teddy bear on the table. She turns it toward him and moves its paw with her thumb and forefinger as she chirps: "Hi, Dave!"

He chuckles and then looks up at her as she plops the milkshake on the table beside the bear. "You gone soft, Lopez?" he teases fondly. He takes the cup off the table almost as soon as she sets it down.

"Fuck you," she says, smirking as she drags the chair over. She slips her sneakers off, props her feet on the side of the bed, and crosses her ankles smartly.

"You trying to flash me?" he asks, still grinning. Maybe his mother wasn't here speaking with him; he's in way too good a mood.

She shakes her head. "You wish." She adjusts the pleats of her skirt pointedly, but she's hardly worried, for more than one reason. Dave deems the milkshake sufficiently stirred and starts taking dainty spoonfuls. The care he takes to avoid spilling gives her a strange surge of affection.

After he's wolfed down a good quarter of the shake, she switches her legs against the bed and fidgets her hands. "Did your mom come up earlier?"

The spoon freezes in midair. Dave looks at her seriously, gulps, and shakes his head. "Why?" he asks, clearly worried. "Did you—"

"She was downstairs in the lobby," Santana tells him, looking at the bear on the table.

He keeps his eyes on her face. "What did she say?"

Santana purses her lips. She can't protect him from this; it wouldn't be fair to him. "She yelled at me for turning you gay."

She's afraid to look at him; afraid his broken expression will make her cry again. She's cried so much, these past few days, she's starting to feel wrung out. But—after a long pause, he starts laughing a little. Hollow, unhappy—but laughing.

When she looks up, he shakes his head helplessly, dunks the spoon in the shake, and covers his mouth. "I'm sorry," he manages, "it's just—if anybody could've turned me  _straight_ …"

Santana stares at him while the irony sinks in. Once it does, her lips turn slowly into a grin; she's laughing when he cracks up again. "God, you're right," she says, thinking of all the boys she proved straight without changing herself; of how that turned on its head with Dave, when her fake boyfriend actually needed a fake girlfriend, too.

After they've quieted down again, Santana asks, more curious than fearful, "Did she see the commercial?"

Dave looks aside and bites his lips between his teeth. "I kind of policed the TV for a while," he admits, and it makes her eyes pop wide open. He half-smiles and shrugs, like he's not sure why he did it and he's sorry if he shouldn't have. "I dunno, it seemed really… fucked up. I didn't want to deal with it, I guess. And I guess it didn't seem fair to you."

She keeps staring at him because she can't move, like she's one of the petrified trees out on the West Coast. It must make him uneasy because he starts to ramble: "Like, fuck, Santana, they shouldn't put that kind of stuff on TV. Even if it wasn't that you're… you know"—he nods awkwardly instead of saying it; she remembers when she had to do that—"it's still fucked up to put, like, some random teenager's personal life on television."

It's then she sees the fear glistening in his eyes. She parts her dry lips to speak, but he carries on, "Jesus, all they did was write f-fag on my locker and I fucking—"

"Dave," she breaks in as his voice cuts out, pulling her feet to the floor and scooting forward to hold his hand on the bed. "Dave, don't do this to yourself."

"I couldn't take it," he weeps, clenching her fingers and wiping his left wrist against his eyes. The finger monitor bumps his nose again. "How did you just fucking take it?"

Her jaw clenches. She knows what he's asking: Why didn't she end up in this hospital? In this psych ward?

She remembers the chair and the TV and Finn fuckface Hudson's stepdad staring at her with pity dripping out of his pores; she remembers running down the hallway and her throat so clogged with tears she thought she'd choke on them. But mostly she remembers Brittany. Brittany's hands running smooth tracks down her back. Brittany's shoulder soaking in her tears. Brittany's butterfly kisses in her hair and along her ear.

That was hard, but she's already shared her hardest time with him. "It was shitty timing," she admits slowly, "and it was really stupid and fucked up, but I still had so much to hold on to." She shrugs. "I had Brittany, and… God, how could I even imagine giving her up?"

He watches her with sadness, trying to understand, and she shrugs again to ease the quiet understanding that Dave doesn't have a Brittany. "Like I said," she reminds him awkwardly, drawing back in the chair and squeezing her hands between her thighs, "I only thought about…"

She shuffles in her seat. This is so hard to say. "I only thought about killing myself when I thought I would never get her back," she says, barely audible.

He hears her.

He must, because this time, he leans forward and tugs the sleeve of her Cheerios jacket until her hand is back in his.

* * *

Dave lets her steal a sip of his milkshake—he insists, actually—and she asks, "So who came by last night?" because she remembers him mentioning somebody.

His expression darkens, and she hesitates before handing the milkshake back to him. "Was it Kurt?" she guesses blindly.

The way his head snaps up means she's wrong, and her chin tilts down and back as he demands, or maybe pleads, "Why would you think it was Kurt? Did he say something? What did he say?" and it makes her ache to remember how she restrained herself from asking about Brittany that way, this time last year, to anyone who would listen.

"We had some circle-jerk feelings powwow in Glee today," she says, rolling her eyes. But he looks curious, and she realizes he still probably has zero idea what normally goes on in Glee.

So she shrugs and says, "Kurt was just bitching about how this is a really tough week for 'some of us.'" Even though she knows Dave's into Kurt, and stuff, she can't resist air quoting the phrase, because Kurt so obviously meant himself and none of the rest of them.

Which, what the fuck, if he hasn't even visited?

"So, I just assumed he'd been by…" She shrugs again and watches the thoughts flicker across Dave's face.

Dave stays quiet, almost long enough that she thinks about changing the subject or saying more, but then he says in his wet, wavering voice, "No, he hasn't been here." But before she can cut in and be ex-beard to the rescue, and bitch about how Kurt's being a dick for not even fucking showing up, Dave's got tears along his cheeks and he's whimpering, "Why would he come here after all I've done to him?"

Santana bites her lip because, Christ, she's already cried more this week than she'd like to admit. "Dave, aren't you guys beyond all that?" She shifts in the chair and he just lets the tears drip off onto his hands. She notices he hasn't shaved today. "I mean," she pushes gently, "it sure sounds like he cares about you."

"That doesn't mean he has to come," Dave insists, shaking his head like he's trying to push the thought away. He puts the milkshake on the bedside table. "He doesn't owe me that."

He means  _I don't deserve that_ , and it makes her sit bolt upright at attention. "Dave, that's not what it's about," she says firmly.

He's wiping his eyes and not listening to her. "God, how can he even look at me? How did he let me sit with him at—at that stupid table, and—"

"Dave." She creeps out of her seat like she's going to spook him; she perches on the side of the bed and reaches out to take his hand. "Dave."

It takes him a moment to stem the tears enough to look her in the eye, which is almost long enough for her to gather her thoughts. She pulls his hand toward her and clamps it gently between both of hers.

"Dave, I think… I know what it's like to hide, you know?" She glances between his eyes: one to the other and back. "You know me. We've both… we've both been lonely before. Hidden ourselves from other people. Hidden from other people." She wets her lips and wishes this speech was scripted, because he's looking at her like he's hoping she's about to change his world. "So I think, when you spend so long doing that—pushing away from people, pushing away from yourself—I think it's easy to forget what it's like to have people who actually know you."

She drops her gaze to their hands because it wasn't until junior year, until the months leading up to the prom debacle, that she realized how lonely she felt without Brittany.

She squeezes his hand and forces herself to look him in the eye again. He's still hanging on her words when she continues: "Kurt knows you, okay? At least he seems to." Dave's breath hitches and she talks quicker. "And maybe it seems weird or fucked up to you or me, that he'd forgive you for the kind of shit other people pulled on us, but who knows? Maybe he's just a good guy or something." She shrugs, not totally buying it, but Dave sniffles curiously and it's a start. "Maybe he sees what you're going through—what you went through—and maybe he sees through what you did."

"Santana, I couldn't take that shit for a week," he protests weakly.

She gives him a half-smile and shrugs. "Actually, it looks like you've been taking it for a week and a half, dickwad."

He grins a little at her and she shrugs again. "It doesn't matter why Kurt wants to forgive you, but it sounds to me like he does. So, Auntie Tana says to say thanks and leave it at that."

Dave grins and cracks the knuckles of his left hand against his lap. It makes his right fingers twitch under hers. "You know, it sounds really dumb when you call yourself that," he mumbles.

"Shut up." She grins back. "I'm hilarious."

He snorts and she giggles a little. He pulls his hand away and folds his arms loosely. He stares nervously at his lap; he looks up at her and asks, hesitantly, "You really think he's forgiven me?"

She smiles sadly. Sympathetically. "Honestly? Yeah. But you'll have to ask him and find out."

* * *

Dave eventually digs back into the milkshake and Santana tentatively asks, "So if it wasn't Kurt, who'd you see yesterday?"

He pauses, spoon floating midway into the cup, and goes back to stirring the shake with slower, deliberate swipes. "This guy from school," he says.

It's the way he says it that keeps her from teasing him. "A guy," she repeats dully, instead of drawing it out in sing-song.

"Well, he  _was_ my best friend," Dave says, only lending sound to every other syllable. It means he's fighting back more tears.

She takes a deep, deep breath. "Dave," she says, and it sounds like it came from her heart instead of her voice box, "if he—if he, like, blows you off because of this, he was never your friend in the first place."

He looks up so quickly and frowns, and she realizes he's probably never thought about it that way. "You—you think?" he asks, and that confirms it.

She exhales quickly and smiles the little smile she gets when Brittany pops into her mind unexpectedly. "It's just—it's this thing Brittany told me," she says, almost bashfully. He scoops melting milkshake into his mouth and settles against the pillows like it's story time. It makes her smirk at him and slap his knee, but she continues: "She says it's Dr. Seuss, but Wikipedia says it's some guy named Baruch"—she cuts herself off there because, really, he doesn't need to know more about her embarrassing fun-fact habits—"but it's this quote, like, 'Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.'"

He frowns a little again. "So… it doesn't matter?" he tries.

"Kind of." She scratches an itch on the side of her knee. "It's like, she said that the girls on Cheerios who kind of hate me now… that, like, the fact that they hate me means they were never really my friends in the first place."

He looks down at the milkshake. Lets it sink in. "That's… that's interesting," he says sincerely. He turns the spoon around in the cup. After another long moment, he smiles a little and looks at her with narrowed, fake-suspicious eyes. "Brittany's kind of smart, huh."

Santana laughs because it's Dave, and he's one of the only people who's figured that out on his own. "No shit," she teases. "That's what I've been saying all along."

* * *

"I'm sorry about my mom," he says later, when she's texting Brittany to tell her what the history assignment is.

"What about her?" she asks without looking up. The assignment is kind of in-depth.

She hears the sheets rustle as he adjusts the pillows or settles in the bed or something. "Well, I don't know what she said to you," he says uneasily.

She's almost finished, but she pauses to look at him. He's chewing his lip and he sort of looks like he's about to be sick. She's pretty sure it's just guilt. "What do you think she said?" Santana asks cautiously.

Dave shrugs and stares at the cup in his lap—now mostly empty. "She's kind of racist," he says.

Santana sighs. She taps out the last word of her message and sends it before turning to face him. "I know, and that's not on you." He still looks guilty. She bites her lip, but in the end, she can't resist asking, "Did she say something about it back when we were dating?"

Referring to it as  _dating_ makes her smile a little. She presses her mouth back into a line.

He shrugs again, clearly uncomfortable, and she suddenly wonders if their situation was really that advantageous for him. "Not really," he says uneasily, "but she didn't really say a lot about it at all."

"You always were more worried about your dad," she recalls mildly.

His eyes drift closed like he's trying to swallow sour medicine. "Yeah. He liked you," he says with a little smile.

"Probably not anymore," she guesses grimly. Without Dave around, they'll probably hear about the commercial soon. Or how their son's ex-girlfriend is apparently a giant lesbo now, or something.

Dave shrugs and swallows nervously. The bruises under his chin shiver. "I don't know," he warbles, tossing his hands in frustration. He picks up the milkshake and stirs it anxiously. "When he comes, he just, like, hugs me really tight and kind of cries."

He looks so upset. Santana sits straighter in alarm. "He hasn't said anything about it?" she asks, astonished.

Dave shakes his head miserably. "He hasn't said anything, not even that he loves me. And I'm too scared to ask…" He shakes his head again and scrapes the spoon against the plastic.

"Dave," she says to break the spell, snatching the cup and spoon from his hands. She sets them on the table and turns more toward him. "Dave, if he's come to see you, that's a good sign, right?"

Her hopeful expression does little to change his. He still looks like a terrified child; like he's been forced to eat peas, and they're making him feel nauseous, but he can't leave the table until he eats them all.

Her gaze drops to the bedspread again and she dials back the optimism. It tasted funny to her sharp tongue, anyway. "If he comes to see you, it means he still cares about you."

"My mom still cares about me," he sniffs sadly, "but she wants me to get cured."

The word makes Santana wince. Again, she feels a jolt of anger at Mrs. Karofsky for thinking that the idea of being straight never even occurred to him. She pushes through it to say, "Maybe your dad's different. Even if he isn't, at least he still loves you."

It sounds bitter, more than she intended, and he mutters, "I didn't mean… I'm sorry about your grandma, or whatever."

"No—" she rushes, "That's not what I meant." She tugs his hand into hers again so he'll look her in the face. He looks frustrated. Frustrated and sad. She squeezes his fingers and explains, "I didn't mean it like that; this isn't about me. I mean that your dad still loves you, and that's the most important thing, okay?"

Dave considers her. He wants to believe her, she can tell, but something holds him back. He bites his lips and says it: "But if he thinks I… If he thinks it's a disease… If he thinks I don't have to be gay… then he doesn't really love  _me_ , does he?"

He doesn't say it like a question.

Santana gulps at her words thrown back at her. She bites the inside of her cheek and squeezes his hand. She wishes she had an answer. "I guess not. You won't know until he talks to you," she says.

His eyes close again and he takes a deep breath.

Even if it hurts, she knows he needs someone to tell him the truth.

* * *

It's been a while. Longer than they usually go in silence.

The idea that they have a  _usual_ is almost laughable.

Suddenly, Dave takes the milkshake back and chugs the rest of it without the spoon. He grimaces a little when he swallows, but he doesn't complain as he sets the empty cup on the bedside table.

Santana watches him absently. "Tomorrow's your last day, right?"

He nods without looking at her. "72-hour watch," he parrots humorlessly.

She looks at her hands and twists her fingers together. The white nail polish Brittany put on her four days ago is starting to chip at the edges. "But you'll still be here tomorrow?"

"Yeah." He knows what she means, the way he always seems to; he adds, with a smile she catches when she glances at him, "I'll be waiting on my milkshake, Lopez."

She can't help but smile back.

"Two next time," he teases, nodding at the single empty cup beside the bear. "You can't butter me up with stuffed animals instead. A man's gotta eat."

She laughs. "You don't eat a milkshake, you drink it," she corrects easily.

He raises his eyebrows. "Not if you're using a spoon," he retorts.

Santana laughs again. "In that case, I won't bring you a spoon."

Dave's eyebrows jolt back upward—like she's offering a challenge he's glad to accept—and he takes the spoon from the empty cup and tucks it between his lips to clean it off.

"You're seriously gonna save that?" she asks, amused.

He dries the plastic on his shitty hospital gown and slips it surreptitiously under his pillows. "Damn straight," he says and preens. With a grin, he repeats himself pointedly: "A man's gotta eat."

"You're ridiculous," she says, shaking her head as she hops to her feet. She pulls out her phone to text Brittany for a ride.

After an extra moment, she hears him say, "Say hi to Brittany for me."

She glances at him and smiles a little. She's adding it to the text when he says, timidly, "You know… if she… if she wanted to come tomorrow…"

Santana blinks in surprise and turns to face him properly. The phone hovers in her hands, an inch from the bubble of her fastened Cheerios jacket. "You want her to come?" she asks, gently, when he keeps struggling for words.

Dave shrugs, almost apologetic. "I know she doesn't like me," he reiterates, because they both know it's true, "and, like, I don't want you to make her come with or anything." His gaze drops to his lap, but he drags it back to her. "But, I mean, it'd be kind of nice to see her."

She's about to answer when he looks down and says, soft and thready, "I know she's important to you."

Santana feels her heart beat once, hard, against her chest. She swallows and smiles tentatively. "Dave…" she begins, teasing lightly. "Are you saying you want to meet my girlfriend?"

"Shut up," he says, but she sees his lip curl into a little smile, even though he's trying to hide it.

Santana beams at him and sends her text without adding anything. "I'll get her here," she promises.

He looks at her shyly. "Thanks for… being here and stuff, Santana."

Her expression softens. "You're welcome, Dave."


	4. Hour 72

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final hours of observation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: canon attempted suicide

They're walking through the parking lot, holding each other's hands and two milkshakes, when Santana shakes her hand loose and bars Brittany across the belly to stop them short.

"Santana?" asks Brittany, checking her face and following her line of sight.

Santana's looking at Kurt, trotting into the doors with a vase of flowers under his arm.

Once Kurt's out of sight, Santana stands frozen for a moment, until Brittany's fingers trace lightly up her sleeve and bend her elbow gently downward. Santana looks at their hands as Brittany tangles them together again—with a reassuring squeeze—and tilts her head, just a little, in curiosity.

Santana glances thoughtfully at the gravel and resumes their strides toward the entrance. Slower this time. "Let's just—give them time to talk, first," she suggests uneasily.

Brittany squeezes her hand again. When they reach the front, she lets go; Santana's hand feels cold instantly in the crisp air, even though she smiles when Brittany holds the door open for her.

She smiles even bigger when Brittany swishes past her, in two long-legged strides, to open the second door, too.

"God, you're such a gentleman, Britt," Santana gasps shyly. She can feel her cheeks, extra warm under the gushing heaters just past the doors.

"Yeah, well, you seem to inspire it in me," Brittany quotes  _Skins_ in a careful British accent, foregoing hand-holding to link their arms together.

Santana giggles and Brittany's steps slow hesitantly in the foyer. They're near the big directory panel Santana paused at two days ago, and the receptionists at the desk on the right barely glance at them as they shuffle paperwork around. The one all the way on the left does a double-take and offers Santana a small, tired smile and a matching wave.

They're far away, so Santana just gestures with her McDonald's cup and nods. "Who is that?" Brittany whispers, right against Santana's ear.

The hot breath tickles and makes her blush. "Um, her name's Molly," Santana answers, leading Brittany beyond the directory and around where the gift shop is. It's a different clerk today; Santana's eyes catch on the cluster of Get Well bears.

"Where do you wanna wait?" asks Brittany, looking around curiously. She's only been here a few times—mostly for injuries, but Santana took her along one time to drop off dinner for her dad—and she has that bright, interested expression she gets when she hasn't been someplace before.

"Maybe we should just hang around here," Santana suggests, suddenly uncertain. Normally, she'd go to the cafeteria, but—she tells Brittany—"I wanna see when Kurt heads out, so we can sneak in before we have to go play eighteenth fiddle at the Finchel fuck-uptials later."

Brittany tugs Santana down into two plastic chairs and puts their milkshakes down. Santana immediately leans her elbows on the table and Brittany settles her hands over Santana's forearm and knuckles. Her hands are already warm through the sleeve of Santana's Cheerios jacket. "It won't be that bad," Brittany says darkly. She does that thing where she tries to smile, but it only half-works on half her mouth, and it really just makes it more obvious how dubious she thinks the whole thing is.

It's so cute on her. Santana grins despite herself. She works the eager grin into a smaller smile and says, "At least you'll be there." She leans in and gives Brittany an Eskimo kiss.

Brittany flicks to the side just a twist and then Santana's feeling a satisfied smirk right against her lips. She kisses back for a moment, then pulls back. Even with the sound of feet on linoleum and crappy music from the gift cart and the drone of the PA system, she hears the soft sound of their lips pulling apart, like a piece of bread being torn gently in halves.

"We can play footsie under the table," Brittany whispers with a sly grin. She nudges Santana's bare knee, and Santana feels the swishy material of their black skirts, still fresh from the competition and mismatched with their red jackets and white cheer sneakers.

Santana rolls her eyes. "Not in a hospital, Britt. That's weird."

"I meant at the reception." Blue eyes sparkle wickedly. "But we could try here, too."

* * *

"I'll tell you one thing, Fred darling," Brittany's quoting while she plays with Santana's hands, "I'd marry you for your money in a minute. Would you marry me for my money?"

Santana beams at her and glances between bright blue eyes and gloss-pinked lips as she answers, "In a minute."

Brittany leans in just a little, teasingly, as she replies, "Good thing neither of us is rich, huh?"

Santana's eyes snag on Brittany's lips as they get closer, but Brittany jerks back sharply and grabs Santana's shoulder. "There's Kurt!" she whispers urgently.

The prim, urgent stride is unmistakable. As is the truly bizarre outfit. "He changed into that, just to change into a suit?" asks Santana with a frown.

Of course it's Brittany who nudges her and gives her an amused smile and a raised eyebrow. Santana stares blankly before jolting up out of the seat. "Right. Up we go."

Brittany giggles at her and grabs both milkshakes. Santana makes a point of linking their arms again as they wander to the elevator banks.

* * *

Santana enters first, encouraging Brittany gently with soft pulls on their linked arms. Brittany looks almost shy as she slips into the room; her eyes take in his weary smile and the cups in her hands before landing on Santana's face, searching for cues.

"Hey, Dave," says Santana, happily and instinctively by now. She feels Brittany's eyes and glances to the left, catching the way they ask for a hint. As she unhooks her arm to grab the milkshakes, she gestures at Brittany with her elbow and says, "This is my girlfriend, Brittany," with a teasing grin, because they've definitely known each other at least since freshman year.

Brittany parrots, "Hey, Dave," with an awkward little wave and an awkward little smile.

For his part, Dave looks a little embarrassed, too. "Hi, Brittany." He rolls his shoulders and accepts the cup Santana slips into his hands.

Before he can do something dumb or unnecessary, like thank Brittany for coming or some shit, Santana points Brittany at the chair—already pulled away from the wall—and settles herself on the side of the bed, the way she's been doing. "So I see Ladyface made it up here finally," she comments, catching the new bunch of flowers on the table by the door.

She hears Dave's hands slow where they're popping the milkshake open. Santana looks at him and finds him looking at Brittany.

"It's okay." Brittany wears her most genuine, sympathetic expression, and Santana swallows to keep it together and focus on Dave as Brittany assures him, "You guys can just talk like I'm not here."

It's the hesitant, timid tone she uses when she feels out of place. Santana touches Brittany's shin with her left foot and sends her a little smile to say _I love you_  and  _you're perfect_  and  _thanks for coming with this time_.

She turns back to Dave and he gazes uncomfortably at the milkshake. He stirs it with the spoon—he wasn't kidding about keeping track of it, apparently, because the one Santana grabbed is still hidden in her pocket—and says, failing to hide a watery grin, "He was just up here like a minute ago."

Santana doesn't miss the way he's staring at his right hand; watching it stir the shake. She shares a smile with Brittany, even though Brittany doesn't know exactly why they're smiling, and Brittany grabs her shoe where it still grazes Brittany's knee.

"And?" Santana prods, poking Dave's knee.

He shuffles bashfully. "He… he says we can be friends."

He looks like it's Christmas and he just unwrapped a BB gun he didn't dare hope for.

Santana grins over the feel of Brittany's fingertips tracing the bones of her ankle. "Lookit you, tiger," she jibes, touching his knee again and shaking it back and forth.

Dave grins despite himself and wags his leg under her hand to dislodge it. "Shut up, Lopez," he mumbles, shoveling ice cream into his mouth like it'll cool his bright red blush.

"Make me," she shoots back. She feels Brittany shifting and turns her head right as Brittany picks her other foot up off the floor. Brittany arranges them in her lap, crossed at the ankles, and Santana grins like a big wuss under Brittany's proud gaze.

"Lookit you, tiger," rumbles Dave lightheartedly, giving Brittany a hesitant smile. His voice sounds better than it did that first day.

Santana's cheeks grow warm and she rolls her eyes at herself. "Yeah, yeah."

Dave glances between the two of them again and asks, "So where'd you two come from?" He nods at their skirts, spilling out under the elastic waists of their jackets, and takes another spoonful of milkshake. "You look all nice and stuff." He smiles kindly at Brittany, with his brows turned up like he's sad or afraid or maybe just tentative.

Santana remembers he was nervous about this; about Brittany. She glances at her girlfriend—yeah, she'll always be Brittany first, but Santana likes the sound of the word in her head—and Brittany's being her normal amazing extraordinary beautiful self, smiling graciously at Dave fucking Karofsky as she traces her hands absently over Santana's skin and answers, "We just won regionals."

"That's awesome!" Dave says, raising his eyebrows in honest surprise. "Congratulations." He turns to Santana and adds, "You look the part." She pulls a face at him and he pulls one back: "The fire hydrant jackets are an especially nice touch."

Brittany snickers and Santana spins and sticks her tongue out. Brittany sticks hers out back and Santana asks Dave, "So Hummel didn't mention regionals to you?"

Dave shrugs and thinks while he eats some more milkshake. "He mostly asked how I was doing and stuff," he says. He sounds more guarded than usual. Brittany's thumb swipes the vein at Santana's ankle.

"What'd you tell him?" asks Santana gently, glancing at Brittany and then back to Dave's face. After three days, she's interested to hear his summation.

He looks befuddled at the cup in his hands and shrugs. "I mean, I told him about Brett"—that must be the ex-best friend—"and my mom, and stuff," he begins. He licks his lips. "He said I should go to another school."

"Maybe you can come back to McKinley," Brittany pipes up. Santana melts because that suggestion sounds even better and brighter and sweeter in Brittany's timid voice. She's being as nervous and careful as Dave is, whenever she speaks; she glances at Santana for encouragement.

"Like I said, we've got your back," Santana reminds him, tearing herself out of Brittany's perfect eyes to look Dave full-on. She sees he's shaved since yesterday; he looks brighter. More put together.

He swallows and smiles fearfully, like he's waiting for them to take it all back. Santana touches his knee to comfort him and his gaze drops like a stone into his milkshake. He sweeps a few hurried spoonfuls into his mouth and sets it aside to twist his fingers together anxiously.

"Listen, Brittany," he says like he's been rehearsing. She looks at him with clear eyes and an open expression and her hands settle on the rim of Santana's socks.

Dave takes a big, deep breath and goes, "I wanted to say I'm really sorry about everything. I mean, I guess I never really did anything to you"—his face scrunches up—"but, like, I know that a lot of shit I did, like, affected you a lot…" He looks down at his hands. "Especially with Kurt, and then with Santana." His eyes flash to her and he bites his lip; she nods slightly to urge him on.

He drags his eyes back to Brittany—still frozen—and he shrugs. "I just—I never meant to hurt you, and I know I hurt a lot of people, and I get it if you don't, like, forgive me or whatever." His voice is fading in and out again, from talking so much or from what he's saying. It cracks as he finishes, "But even if you don't, I think it's really important that you know. That I'm sorry."

There, his voice fails completely, shorting out in an unnaturally high pitch on  _sorry_. He clears his throat awkwardly and shuts his eyes.

Santana looks left and catches Brittany's eyes. They're not wet—she's not crying—but they're glossy, bright with feeling. She squeezes Santana's feet and looks at them in her lap.

Santana watches her wet her lips and waits patiently. Everything Brittany ever says surprises her; every time Brittany speaks, she pays attention.

"You know the mean reds?" she asks in a voice as soft as the skirt under Santana's shins. Santana looks quickly at Dave, who looks confused and curious; he's probably never seen  _Breakfast at Tiffany's_.

Maybe they'll fix that later. Now that they're friends.

Brittany continues, soft-deep: "The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of." Brittany looks meaningfully at Santana, who shivers; she adjusts her hands on the mattress and her wrist ghosts against Dave's knee.

Brittany looks at her lap—at her fingers curled around Santana's white shoes—and murmurs, "Fear makes people do all kinds of stuff, and a lot of it is super horrible and sucks." She picks at Santana's shoelace. "But all you can do is try to find something that calms you down and makes you forget how afraid you are."

Blue eyes meet Santana's, cool and sad and deep, and then jump to Dave. Santana turns to him and he looks like he's been stunned. It's the same face he wore for an instant at the Lima Bean, when Santana said she knew he was gay; unlike last spring, though, fear doesn't wipe the look away in an instant. His expression settles into soft awe.

Santana bites her lip and says, so soft her throat scratches the words, "I told you she was a fucking genius." She knows adoration is leaking across her face and she doesn't even care.

Brittany looks almost embarrassed and shoots her an  _oh, San_  smile. Dave takes a loud, shaky breath and scoops his spoon noisily around the plastic cup.

It catches Brittany's attention again; she bites her lips and quietly clarifies, "We all do things we regret. I'm just glad you learned from it."

Her gentleness seems to overwhelm him; he chuckles breathily, nervously, even as tears spill past his eyelashes. "Thanks, Brittany," he says, wiping his face with one big paw and returning to his milkshake.

Brittany smiles curiously at Santana, like,  _Did I do good?_

Like Santana would ever say no.

Santana grins at her and shakes her head in disbelief. "So, you're almost free, huh, Dave?" she asks, to remind herself that he's in the room. She wiggles her feet happily in Brittany's hands as she turns her face toward Dave.

"Yeah," he says, slowing his hand on the spoon. He licks his lips and bites them as his gaze grows unfocused.

"Dave," she coaxes, moving her wrist back slightly to touch his knee. His eyes snap to hers and she tilts her head forward to regard him seriously. "I was serious. If you need someplace to stay…"

He shakes his head and swallows. "I don't…" He hesitates; changes his mind. "I'll keep it in mind," he promises, shrugging as he takes another mouthful from the cup.

"Did your dad say anything?"

Dave shakes his head slowly. "He just said he's excited to have me back home," he recalls cautiously, like saying it aloud will jinx it.

Santana bites her tongue and looks at Brittany. "Whatever happens, you have my number, right?" she asks Dave, letting her eyes slide back to him.

He nods solemnly. "Yeah. I… you don't have to worry about… this. Happening again."

The weight of the words makes his voice shake harder; it almost hurts, how sincere it is.

Santana gives him a half smile. Before she gets around to replying, he goes on, hesitantly: "Maybe… maybe I will come back to McKinley."

Santana glances quick at Brittany—who does the same, like they're tuned to the same whistle, like they always have been—and back to him, intrigued. "You think?"

He shrugs and says, "I mean, I left because they were… people thought I was gay. But everybody at Thurston is pretty much convinced, now." The words sound painful. He's not bitter enough to swear, so it just sounds like defeat.

"It's not as bad as it was," offers Brittany cautiously. She meets Santana's eyes before looking earnestly at Dave. "There's still, like, comments and stuff, and some of the Cheerios and football guys are still butts about it"—Santana smiles helplessly at  _butts_  because fuck, Brittany is cute—"but even if it's not totally easy, or whatever, San's kind of scared a lot of people straight."

Dave mulls this over.

"No pun intended." Brittany winces.

Santana gulps down a surge of fluffy sappy lovey feeling and wiggles her feet in Brittany's hands. Brittany smiles at her, like a teacher at a giggling student, and turns back to Dave like Santana should, too.

So she does. Dave's zoned out at his milkshake again, wearing that thoughtful look that always took Santana by surprise, back when she was positive he had exactly two brain cells to rub together and used both of them to identify Sam's ass as being attractive.

"Just think about it," Santana nudges. "It's not like you gots to decide this second."

Dave smirks, just like she wanted. He flicks his little eyes at her and squirms his shoulders like a soundless giggle. He tips the cup to his lips and shovels some of the milkshake down his gullet like it's going out of style.

"You eat like San after Cheerios practice," quips Brittany, squeezing the toe of Santana's sneaker.

Santana kicks a little with a grin. "Hey!"

"He does!" Brittany insists. Santana can't reach far enough to poke her, so she settles for sticking her tongue out; Brittany blows a raspberry back, and Santana hears Dave chuckling.

"Oh, hush, asshat," she says, rolling her eyes at him.

"You're cute when you're happy," he teases. Brittany grins at him, clearly excited to meet somebody who's not afraid to make fun of Santana with her.

Santana groans dramatically. "And here I thought I was safe from you," she laments in a Rachel Berry voice.

Brittany snickers and Dave laughs. "Careful, Brittany. If you keep making her smile like that, she might convert me," he jokes lightly.

"That's okay," says Brittany with a bright grin. Santana turns with her eyebrows raised and Brittany's eyes crinkle happily. "She's still gonna be totally crazy in love with me, so you can like her all you want." She suddenly yanks Santana's feet in toward her and hugs them; Santana yelps as she nearly falls off the bed, and she has to grab the railing and the bedspread to keep steady with her butt mostly off the mattress.

Dave's laughing like an asshole and Santana kicks her way out of Brittany's tight squeeze. Brittany's laughing, too, because Santana has to let go of the bed and fall ass-first on the floor to get to a position where she can fucking move again. She huffs as she gets to her feet, but she stands down reluctantly at the sight of Brittany being a happy giggly gorgeous goddess and of Dave actually smiling like there's something worth smiling about.

"You guys suck," she grumbles, needlessly smoothing out the ruffled skirt of her dress.

Brittany grins evilly and says, "Don't act like you don't like it," with a raised eyebrow and mischievous bedroom eyes.

Santana feels her cheeks get warm in an instant and before she knows it, she's calculating how much time they have between now and the stupid wedding. Maybe she can get Brittany to blow off the wedding. It's just Fimpotent and Squawky celebrating their right to play house like kindergarteners.

"Save it for the janitors' closet, ladies," Dave's saying drily, and Santana's still happily surprised by the way his wit surfaces where she doesn't expect it.

Brittany grins and returns, "You're probably the first guy to say  _that_."

It's not true, but Santana's sure as shit not gonna bring up Artie right now.

"I bet Kurt would take my side," says Dave with a mild shrug and a crooked smile.

Santana grins. "He'd probably be too busy running away with his fingers in his ears."

"Yeah." Brittany looks at Santana smugly. "That time I made out with him, he freaking  _squeaked_ when he saw my bra strap."

Santana laughs and adopts a falsetto: "Eee! Girl parts!" she mimics, waving her hands dramatically with her elbows pinned at her sides.

Dave points his spoon at them and says, "Girl parts are crazy dangerous. Don't even kid."

It takes them a moment to realize he's not serious; his lips curl at the edges and they're laughing again, softer and quieter. "They should come with warning labels," he carries on: "Warning: May Cause Children."

Brittany wrinkles her nose. "Gross," she says, right as Santana drawls, "Wanky." They look at each other and giggle again.

In the corner of her eye, Santana sees Dave check the cell phone she gave him. "What time do you guys have to go?" he asks, concern creeping onto his face.

"Never," groans Santana flatly.

Brittany purses her lips unhappily and asks, "What time is it?"

"Almost four," he says.

Brittany looks at Santana and Santana links her hands behind her, settling them in the flouncy black fabric. "I guess we should go soon," Brittany says.

Santana turns to Dave and asks, "This is your last day, right?"

He nods and sets the half-empty cup on the table. "I'm going home tomorrow," he rasps uneasily.

Santana tries to smile, but she feels her lips quivering as she takes in his heartsick expression. She steps into the corner between the table and his bed and leans over to hug him. It takes him by surprise; he takes a full second to wrap his arms around her.

When he does, he squeezes tight. She feels the wet corner of his eye against her neck, under the curtain of her hair.

She draws away because they really do have to go, and anyway, just because it's a special enough occasion for her to hug him doesn't mean it has to go on forever. "Call me tomorrow and I'll come see you," she instructs, and she can feel her sincerity seeping out around her eyes and at the edges of her mouth.

He nods just as somberly and smiles just the tiniest bit. "Thanks for coming, Santana," he says, voice wandering in and out around the emotion clogging his bruised throat.

She wets her lips and nods because she doesn't know what else to do. He rescues her when he looks around her and smiles a little more at Brittany. "You too, Brittany," he says, fiddling with the monitor on his finger. "It means a lot to me that you came."

"That's what she said," offers Brittany with a reassuring little smile. Santana knows Brittany means it both ways—as a sex joke and as a way to say she wants to say thank you, too—but Dave at least interprets it as camaraderie and nods at her like the football bro he really is.

Brittany climbs quietly out of the chair and smooths her skirt. Santana turns halfway to link their hands at every finger—and God, it's at least five or ten or fifty times better than pinkies—and she holds her fist up to Dave. "Stay frosty," she says with a grin, thinking of the condensation on the plastic cups right beside her.

"You know it," says Dave. He bumps her fist and she beats it twice against her breastbone before flashing a peace sign.

He grins and mirrors her, belatedly.

As they pass the window, Santana glances in and sees him digging back into the milkshake, smiling and looking at the teddy bear still perched on the bedside table.

Santana squeezes Brittany's hand and thinks maybe he'll be okay, too, after all.

Maybe they can both finally be okay.


End file.
